Palestinians Get Down To Business

Thirteen Palestinian factions were participating in cease-fire talks Thursday in Cairo, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out dozens of suicide bombings against Israel.

The factions will hold talks for three days. If an agreement is reached, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia would bring the deal to his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon, and try to get Israel to sign on.

In return, Israel will scale back its military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if the Palestinians pledge to halt attacks on Israel, a senior defense official said Thursday.

Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim's comments, which came a day after Israel said it had thwarted a suicide bomb attack on a school, were the clearest statement yet that Israel would respond favorably to a cease-fire offer.

The Palestinians hope the truce will induce Israel to halt its attacks on militants and Palestinian civilian areas, paving the way for resuming peace negotiations.

"If the Palestinians agree to a cease-fire in Cairo, it's certainly not out of the question that Israel will agree to restrain its military activity," Boim told Israel Radio.

Israel's prospects for peace are brightening on another front. A senior Western diplomat told the Associated Press that Syria's president has agreed to a proposal to halt violence along Israel's northern border if Israel promises to end flights over Lebanon and not attack its territory.

A cease-fire would be followed by efforts to renew peace talks between Israel and Syria, which were suspended in 2000.

Israeli officials would not comment publicly on the effort.

Despite the hopeful signs from Damascus, Sharon adviser Dore Gold accused Syria — a backer of Islamic Jihad — of being behind the attempted school attack.

"While Syria is floating trial balloons in the New York Times for peace it continues to harbor the terrorist organizations that are determined to kill and maim Israeli school children," Gold said.

In a Times interview this week, Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was ready to resume peace talks.

Israel announced the arrests of the alleged suicide bombers late Wednesday, hours after declaring a terror alert in parts of northern Israel.

The restrictions were lifted after Israeli troops raided a mosque in the West Bank village of Bardala, arresting two men, said Tadji Sawafta, a local official.

The army said the men also had an explosives belt of the type used in suicide bombing attacks.

Bardala is on the line between Israel and the West Bank, nine miles south of the Israeli town of Beit Shean.

Gold said the attackers planned to carry out a suicide bombing in a school in the Israeli town of Yokneam.

Parents are uneasy, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger: Students have been blown up on buses, and now the schools are targets, too.

In another development, Israel's Lands Administration said it had authorized new housing construction in the West Bank settlement of Ariel. Palestinians condemned the announcement and said it endangered the chances of success in Cairo.

An advertisement published in an Israeli newspaper invited contractors to bid for the construction of 13 homes in Ariel, the second-largest West Bank settlement, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said the expansion of Ariel threatened the Cairo cease-fire efforts.

"We're about to engage in a serious Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue," Erekat said.

"I want to call upon the Israeli government to stop thinking unilateral, and to refrain from more settlements, walls and incursions, and to think bilateral," he added.